Brooklyn Connolly: “Now, with weeks to go before the 2021 school year begins, it seems that a safe return is the latest task to be ignored. Perhaps this is because making a plan means addressing its years of non-action, the ones that money could have solved: if only that new school was built, if ventilation was replaced, if teacher’s concerns hadn’t gotten lost.”

Danny Cavanagh: Blaming the workers and the minimal government benefits they receive is unfair. It is also unfair to portray workers as lazy and unproductive. It is fair to say that today’s workforce wants better than low-wage part-time jobs without benefits. They will no longer tolerate being called part-time while working full-time hours. They want paid sick leave and other workplace benefits.

After a judge struck down a challenge of the injunction on public gatherings last month, calling the matter “moot,” a non-profit organization is determined to have their day in court. The injunction was used as justification to ticket and arrest demonstrators at a Free Palestine caravan rally in Halifax’s south end.

Stacey Gomez: There are migrant workers who want to be vaccinated and who haven’t yet received their first dose. At the same time, there are migrant workers who are being pressured to get the vaccine. For this racialized workforce with precarious immigration status, vaccine access is an urgent issue of racial inequity that must be addressed.